UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN

As a follow-up to my article “The Many and Varied Balloons of Roswell,” I thought I would share with you another example of how and why the UFO phenomenon was – in the late 1940s – so tied to the matter of top secret balloon-based programs. It was primarily because, in many cases, they were one and the same! Today’s example has for many years been perceived as a ufological classic, but which also falls under the “secret balloon” category. It occurred just half a year after Roswell. It’s the strange and ultimately tragic affair of Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Captain Thomas P. Mantell, who, many UFO believers accept, lost his life chasing a UFO on the afternoon of January 7, 1948. He did not. Mantell died chasing a balloon.

Mystery Object Causing UFO Sightings Caught on Video

Matters began when personnel at Godman Army Air Field, Kentucky, caught sight of something in the sky they perceived as very strange: a large and extremely reflective object that appeared to be circular in design. No one could identify it. It was, then, hardly surprising that talk of flying saucers was quickly all-encompassing.

Fortunately, or so it seemed at the time, a squadron of four P51Mustang aircraft was heading towards Godman Army Airfield – a squadron under the command of Captain Mantell. One of the pilots was low on fuel, another one expressed concerns about pursuing the object due to his lack of an oxygen-mask, and a third was ordered to shadow to the ground the pilot who had worries about losing consciousness due to oxygen deprivation. That just left Captain Mantell to pursue the object.

At a height of around 15,000 feet, Mantell called into the base and said that he could see the “UFO” quite clearly. He pushed his plane further through the skies, ultimately reaching a height of approximately 25,000 feet. Then, nothing. Apart, that is, from death for the captain: having reached such an altitude without oxygen, Mantell passed out and his plane plummeted to the ground. For many in Ufology, the case is a UFO classic. No, it’s not. It’s a classic mistake.

Unbeknownst to many within the military, at the time of Mantell’s encounter, the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research had developed, and deployed, massive balloons into the skies of the United States. It was all part of a program called Project Skyhook. For the most part, the balloons captured meteorological data. That did not take away the fact, however, that the existence of the balloons was a well-kept secret. These monster-sized balloons were highly reflective, just as was the object that Mantell encountered. On the subject of Mantell, it’s very important to note that he did not have a need-to-know clearance about the work of Project Skyhook.

Staff at the Air Force’s UFO program, Project Sign, were told of Skyhook, however. This was something which placed Project Sign staff in a very awkward position. They had no desire to tell the world that Mantell had possibly been blown out of the skies by aliens, particularly so because he wasn’t. But, due to the highly classified nature of Project Skyhook, they could hardly reveal the truth without also compromising the Navy’s project. So, Sign staff offered unlikely suggestions that didn’t really convince anyone, such as that perhaps Mantell, in a confused and low-on-oxygen state, was mistakenly chasing the planet Venus. UFO researchers, history has shown, suspected that the military was engaged in a cover-up. Well, yes, it was. But, they weren’t hiding a UFO. They were hiding a highly classified balloon.

I bring the Mantell case to your attention for one particular reason. Not because it has a link to Roswell, but because it demonstrates that in terms of national security and secret military programs, in the early years of the Cold War massive balloons, flying saucers, and UFOs very often crossed paths in odd ways that many might think almost unimaginable. In the Roswell case, the truth was hidden behind a barrier of tales of UFOs, weather-balloons and Project Mogul balloons. In the Mantell case, the military couldn’t reveal what they really knew, because doing so would have opened up a large can of worms about the balloon-based Project Skyhook.

Indeed, and as Dr. David Clarke – the author of, among others, How UFOs Conquered the World – noted in 2015, with regard to Project Skyhook and Mantell: “In 2004 a former member of the project’s staff, Duke Gildenberg, revealed the Office of Naval Research had monitored press reports of flying saucer sightings to track the movements of their balloons. The Mantell incident was an early indication of the problems – and solutions – that mass belief in UFOs could provide for intelligence agencies.”

In December 2015, the U.S. edition of The Guardian stated: “Cultural analyst Sherry Turkle warns we’re rapidly approaching a point where: ‘We may actually prefer the kinship of machines to relationships with real people and animals.’ Certainly we have long had a fascination with these half-women, from The Bionic Woman in the 1970s to Her in 2013, where Joaquin Phoenix fell in love with his computer’s operating system…”

The late Mac Tonnies, who wrote three books – The Cryptoterrestrials, After the Martian Apocalypse, and Illumined Black – had a particular interest in this field. More than a decade ago I interviewed Mac about his growing interest in the field of sex with robots (he died in 2009). And, while going through a box of old files yesterday I stumbled on the Word document of the Q&A for the first time in years. So, I thought I would share it with you today.

It was, Mac told me, Blade Runner that caught his attention and led him to start digging into the world of robot-human sex: “”I saw that movie for the first time in high-school. It had Darryl Hannah playing a robot called Pris, who is described as a ‘pleasure model.’ She’s all punked-out: big-hair, eye-liner, and looks like your typical genetically-engineered hooker. But she’s essentially human: she’s an individual. So, the whole idea of having intimate relations with machines began to interest me.”

Mac continued: “As things stand now, we’re in the infant stage of development, and the closest things we have to full-on human-robot sex are, effectively, high-tech dildos. But in 20 years we’re liable to see sex-oriented technology transformed and revolutionized; many will choose robotic partners. My interest in robot-sex is actually kind of clinical. I would probably do it out of sheer interest and curiosity. She would have to pass for human though; right down to the pores on her skin. I wouldn’t make a habit out of it; but as a curiosity, I’d try it.”

He added: “Most people think of robots as being something clunky and mechanical – something we’re not attracted to on the sexual level. But if we get to the point where science is now heading – where we have very realistic human-like robots – they would bear very little resemblance to the sci-fi image that people have from Star Wars, Star Trek, etc. If you look at the robots in Blade Runner, you’ll see they actually aren’t mechanical at all: they’re genetically engineered. So, in the future we might grow an artificial embryo in a vat and then plug in a computerized brain, into which we’ll download sex-based software.”

He speculated on how the phenomenon of human-robot sex might progress: “I think shallow relationships, closed-minded ones, would be the first to suffer if one of the people in the relationship brought a robot home. However, more robust relationships might thrive. It will be the underground, alternative couples that embrace this. The people who might be swingers, who go to sex clubs, or who have three-ways; these would probably be the ones more likely to experiment with robot-sex and make it a part of their sexual lifestyle.”

Mac had more to say, too: “I can easily foresee companies selling themed robots. You’ll have just as many themed robots as there are sexual kinks. Robotic lovers, perhaps complimented by virtual reality, will allow people to live out whatever fantasies they want with surprising realism. Even further ahead, I also think that this sexual revolution will blur the lines of sexuality: gay, lesbian, bi or whatever may become somewhat outdated as people start to experiment with future-sex.

“Some sex-robots might even be reproductions of celebrities: for example, you could go online and have delivered to your front-door a life-like Pamela Anderson robot. And, maybe, for people who are nervous about bringing a real girl into the bedroom, but who are also really curious about trying it, a machine just might work. We’ll probably be able to download different personalities into our sex-robots, too: kind of like switching avatars in an online chat-room.”

Mac also addressed the matter of our sex-machines becoming intelligent. He said: “Right now, we program our machines to work for us. They don’t have intelligence. But it’s only a matter of time before we develop robots that think for themselves and become individual, living beings. The only difference is that whereas we are carbon-based, they will be synthetic: grown instead of born. When that happens, everything changes. We might even see the robots refusing to have sex with us, and just wanting to have sex with each other. But on the other hand, knowing that we are having sex with a machine that has intelligence – rather than just with a mindless, blow-up doll – might be a turn-on for both us and them.”

Mac concluded: “Religious groups will probably see this as an affront to humanity. But there are people out there who will pay handsomely to have sex with machines, if they are sufficiently human-like. I don’t think it denigrates the human condition. After all, we’re lusty creatures. And it’s not terribly offensive. At first, it might be seen as being that way. But when they begin to look and act like us, it will be no big deal to say: ‘My girlfriend’s a robot.'”

As someone who used to regularly write features for Penthouse, who promoted (for the now-defunct DFW Nites) strip-clubs in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and who doesn’t have any hang-ups, I don’t see any harm in this at all. But, personally, I’ll stick to real women. Of course, fifty years from now, my preference might very well be seen as outmoded. Completely redundant, even!